Mastering InDesign CS3: School's In!

Disclaimer: This writer worked as tech­ni­cal edi­tor of the book being reviewed. The book author is, of course, the editor-in-chief of QuarkVsInDesign​.com


Mastering InDesign

The newest release of Adobe’s page lay­out stan­dard, InDesign CS3, is sim­ply drip­ping with new fea­tures. From trans­paren­cy and object effects and styles to expand­ed graph­ic effects such as gra­di­ent feath­er to the new inter­face, it’s an eye-glazing can­dy store for the lay­out artist.

But where does one start with the new stuff? More to the point, how can one access the new stuff in a way that makes the best use of it? 

An Approach on a Gradient

In its 12 chap­ters, Pariah S. Burke’s Mastering InDesign CS3 for Print Design and Production (Sybex/Wiley, $49.99 US, ISBN 987–0‑470–11456‑8) takes you up the learn­ing curve in chap­ters that fol­low a log­i­cal the­mat­ic pro­gres­sion, from the basics of Text to the advanced sub­jects involved in col­lab­o­ra­tion. With his exten­sive expe­ri­ence in print pub­li­ca­tion design and soft­ware, he takes you on a thor­ough tour of the ins and outs of InDesign CS3, its ways and means, and tips on not only how to make it work, but how to make it work for you. This is enhanced with numer­ous “MasterIt” exer­cis­es and “Real World Scenarios” designed to get the read­er plugged in to what the pro­gram can accom­plish for them.

Accessible Advancements and Productivity

For new and expe­ri­enced users, some of the most referred-to con­tent in the book might be Chapter 6–Objects. In this impor­tant chap­ter, Burke takes a close look at the new object styles and effects. The empha­sis is on doing as much pos­si­ble with­in InDesign, and from my own expe­ri­ence, I can con­fi­dent­ly say that the eye is toward sav­ing the user as many steps as possible.

More than any­thing, these new object effects and styles make it even more pos­si­ble for the lay­out artist to accom­plish what they need to do with­out mak­ing side trips into Illustrator and Photoshop. After all, it’s mad use­ful to have PS and Illy to hand, and incred­i­bly use­ful and easy to invoke with Adobe’s inte­gra­tive out­look, but if you just want to, say, put in a gra­di­ent feath­er effect, you now don’t have to fire up Photoshop, gen­er­ate an adjust­ment lay­er, apply a gra­di­ent mask, and resave the graph­ic just to get your gradient–you just do it from with­in InDesign. Pariah’s approach­es this and every top­ic with the eye toward increas­ing effi­cien­cy and reduc­ing wast­ed motion–less futz­ing about with the app, more cre­ative prob­lem solv­ing for the user.

Perhaps the most impor­tant ben­e­fit this book offers is, indeed, the author’s focused approach toward effi­cient prac­tices overall.

Going the Distance

One of the truest tests of a well-done instruc­tion­al book is that whether or not the book teach­es you what you want to know, does it make a good ongo­ing reference–can you put it on your shelf and expect to be able to grab it lat­er to check your knowl­edge or refresh your know-how, if necessary?

To me, this book has what it takes. Not only does it have the author’s thor­ough under­stand­ing of what InDesign CS3 can do for you and how you can make it do it, its well and lav­ish­ly designed–generous with col­or illus­tra­tions, well-laid out and log­i­cal­ly orga­nized. It is a book that can live at hand on your desk and be referred to in future for that bit of infor­ma­tion you’ll need to get the job done. 

But judge for your­self; Pariah has post­ed some con­tent from Chapter 12 (Collaboration) here on Quark Vs InDesign, and know­ing what I know about the book, I think it will sell you on it.